How can 'the future' shape the present when all possible futures are 'the
future'? (You now have your response).
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Devin Harris [SMTP:harrisdev.domain.name.hidden]
> Sent: Monday, June 21, 1999 1:14 PM
> To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> Subject: Re: General Craziness
>
> Jacques Mallah wrote:
>
> Chris Maloney - the latest, and worst, addition to our little group.
>
> I have posted maybe five times. I mainly explain my own personal theories.
> Unlike Chris, I haven't read any of the archived posts. None of my posts
> have fit in with the regular discussions. Remember my idea that all worlds
> branch or converge toward one future. Obviously crackpot. How 'bout when I
> dropped time as a dimension. No one has posted a response to anything I
> have written.
>
> I have been ignored. I posted ideas about the distant future being
> determined or inevitable, and how that shapes the present, which got no
> direct response.
>
> Quantumly speaking, we know the past is not determined until we observe
> it, as is true of the future. There isn't merely one past. So we can
> imagine the wave function of all possible worlds in the past. The wave
> function is very wide first considering the immediate past, yet as we look
> ever deeper into the past, all the many possible worlds we can envision
> merge toward a single beginning, common to all paths, the Big Bang. All
> possible worlds begin from or near a common single state. Notice how that
> one inevitable distant past shapes what we observe about the past. It
> shapes our present. It makes the background radiation evenly distributed.
> It shows us one model of the past, not many depending upon which direction
> we look, or on different days.
>
> The common origin of all quantum worlds makes our past consistent and
> contributes to the flow of time being consistent. It radically narrows the
> wave function, as related to what is possible to have happened. Now look
> at the future. What is possible in the immediate future is also wide.
> Consider that the set of all possible futures narrows toward a single
> outcome, a single state, just like the past. Notice how that single future
> would shape our world, our present, just as the single state in our past
> shapes our world. Notice finally that if the past only shaped the present,
> if the future didn't shape the present, then what is possible; the wave
> function, would expand radically into chaotic possibilities. Then, there
> would be no rational laws of nature.
>
> So anyway, I don't see why Chris gets to be denoted as the worst member of
> this group. This is not fair. I mean, he shared something personal but the
> topic clearly related to quantum immortality, and come on, it was great
> reading. Damn, I thought it was an excerpt from a book or something. It
> reminded me of Douglas Adams. Seriously Chris, I thought it was too
> polished to be a post. You should consider publishing that story, and I am
> not just saying that to redeem my position.
>
> On the issue of quantum suicide, there are factors to what is possible in
> the branching paths of time that are not being discussed in this group and
> that are simply not known at this time. A line from LeGuin, "The truth is
> that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he
> can follow grows narrower; until at last he chooses nothing, but does only
> and wholly what he must do..."
>
> Again, the future is shaping the past, so it doesn't matter much what
> course one maneuvers. We cannot escape the future. Eventually we collide
> with the same problems, in this life or whatever follows, so we face and
> eventually solve them. Its part of the process. We each are an evolving
> universe. That's not meant to be positive. Its real.
>
> I didn't think your story was scary at all. It was real and fascinating,
> sort of in the sense that fact is more fascinating than fiction. You see I
> think already in different terms. If this group is centered upon
> discussing an everything universe, and is going to do anything other than
> regurgitate other peoples science and idea, it needs to confront more
> vividly the issues surrounding timelessness and the meaning of an infinite
> universe.
>
> Most people respond with fear and avoidance to the suicide option, mainly
> from our common struggle to cope with the meaninglessness that creeps into
> our lives. How does our response change if we factually know that the
> observer exists beyond death? If this group was really accomplishing
> something, it would be a place to exercise the mind in different ways of
> seeing such things as real death, or suicide, from the perspectives that
> result of MWs, or an anthropic universe, an observer created reality, etc.
>
>
> Here is something I like to think about. There is no place where the
> universe is not. If the observer is indeed a world in itself, then we
> cannot stop existing. Its not a choice we have. Non-existence cannot be.
> What we are, what we become, is ever changing, yet each observer
> experience ends as another begins. That is true of every moment. We die in
> the stillness of each moment and are constantly reborn into another.
>
> Now that is deep shit without direct mention of any science. And I have
> spent hours writing my other posts, carefully explaining crackpot theories
> that contradict much of what you guys discuss. I don't see why Chris
> should get all the violent opposition.
>
> If that doesn't work, let me share other thoughts. I think there should be
> a different title for those such as Einstein, Newton, Feynman and Hawking,
> the explorers and creators of science, and the masses that follow claiming
> also to be scientists, who in fact don't relate at all. That's really not
> so much of an insult to anyone as one might think.
>
> Mainly, I think most in this group need to keep in mind a healthy dose of
> reasonable doubt that we have all the major factors needed to understand
> the shape of many worlds or of an ensemble or everything theory. This
> shouldn't be a discussion place of sharply narrow issues yet. Ideally this
> group needs a monitor that would keep discussions civilized, open, and
> vibrant, to counteract individuals who desire to squelch all but their own
> adherence and discipline.
>
> Devin Harris
Received on Mon Jun 21 1999 - 05:46:35 PDT
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